Friday, August 19, 2011

1.My mother says she wishes I’d never been born and I don’t think that’s true. Because then she’d have a 26 year old man living inside of her. –Dan Mintz

2. "I made out with my best friend in college and he's a nice guy, but kissing him was like kissing my brother. If my brother weren't the best kisser ever."—Mo Welch

3. When I finished high school I wanted to take all my graduation money and buy myself a motorcycle. Buy my mom said no. See, she had a brother who died in a horrible motorcycle accident when he was 18. And I could just have his motorcycle. –Anthony Jeselnik

4.We got a call that my grandma is going to die. And I know this might sound insensitive. But I am not going to pay that ransom.
–Anthony Jeselnik

5.Outside of a dog a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read. –Groucho Marx.

6.“I like to play music during sex. But it’s mostly because my parents spent so much money on trumpet lessons.”—Ken Barnard

7. "What do you guys think about these thought crimes? Nothing I hope!" -Mike Drucker

8. "I don't know if Tyra Banks is a deep person. I bet as a child she never wondered what would happen if she ate that piece of poop." -Rylee Newton

9. "When I get back to LA I'm going to have to go see my doctor because I've been feeling really... attracted to him." -Wendy Liebman

10. I'm not looking for much in a guy, I just want, like, a really nice guy who has, you know, like a job... and the missing half of this golden amulet. –Maria Bamford

11. My old lip color could barely keep up with my busy schedule. In the time it takes to notice the wide discrepancy between my salary and that of my male peers, I'd have to reapply! In the seconds to count the number of women in high political office, seated on corporate executive boards and featured in film and television over the age of 40, my lip color would be as invisible as this glass ceiling only inches above my head! L'Oreal. Because I am worth. And because holding myself to an impossible standard of beauty keeps me from starting a riot! – Maria Bamford

12. As a vegetarian I do support gay marriage, because it’s like “you guys eat animals… what’s next, you’re going to eat gay people?” –Myq Kaplan

13. "Growing up I used to think that my dad was a vampire because he never showed up in any of my pictures." -Rylee Newton

14. “The easiest time to add insult to injury is when you’re signing somebody’s cast.” -Demetri Martin
15. "I do like the south. I'm from the south. So I'm prejudiced." -Emo Phillips.

16. “I could never be in a porno because the director would have to keep yelling at me not to fall in love." -Mike Drucker

17. I was an altar boy when I was a kid, and the answer is 'no.' -Mike Birbiglia

18. “I read an article that said, 'Car accidents happen closest to home.' Does that mean that orphans are better drivers? No, if you think about it, it makes sense. 'Cause they'd have more time to practice when they're not being loved by anyone.” –Jon Dore

19. “I’m a pretty shy person. My number one pet peeve is when my loud extroverted friends are like ‘No Aparna, don’t feel weird, I’m actually shy too, we all are a little bit.’ Don’t do that. Don’t take the one thing I have to cling to this world to in the fetal position preferably. If you say you’re shy you need the street cred to back it up. You need to earn it. Have you ever been kicked out of the library for being too quiet? ‘Sorry, miss, but you’ve been here for days.’ ‘But my friends live in the pages!’” –Aparna Nancherla

21. "I went to a funeral and they handed out tissues before the ceremony, which I thought was kind of cocky." - Mike Birbiglia.

22. “My grandpa said in my day that dollar would have bought me a full meal. I said Grandpa in your day that dollar would have gotten you arrested for spending money from the future.” –Erik Bergstrom

23. "If you're gonna buy a book about how to pick up chicks, make sure to check to copyright date, so you don't end up like me, standing on a corner, leaning against a lampost flipping a quarter." -Jesse Popp.

24. "If I ever meet a homophob who's like 'It's Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' I'd be like 'Don't you mean it's Adam and Eve not Madam and Eve?' because I feel like women have made it far enough in history to earn equal billing in catchy hate slogans. Can't we at least get in on some of that sweet sweet lesbian bigotry? Haven't we suffraged enough? Uh oh history pun, she's a witch burn her!" -Aparna Nancherla

25. "My boyfriend's trying to get me to eat healthier. Like for breakfast I like to have a cup choc-chip ice cream with some choc chips up top, sweet power surge get the little lady started. And my boyfriend, my boyfriend he's like why don't you have some whole wheat toast with a bu-nu-nu spread upon it. Because that's good. You can't change people. You can't change me. I'm a gypsy. I'm a SEA COW. Yeah, I know the motorboats are going to hit me, but this is where I fucking swim!" - Maria Bamford

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Alex rolled over beneath puddles of starch sheets and put her head under the pillow. The blankets were scratchy against her skin like a crumpled up boring love letter. The room was dark but her sharp eyes could make out outlines and shadows creeping beneath the closet door. Her heart beat accelerated it's rhythm. The throbbing rumbled deep inside of her like underneath piles of her flesh someone from the blue man group was play drums. She anxiously itched at her skin.

"You okay, baby?" yelped the sleeping smelly heap of human being lifeform next to her. Jeremy's eyes were closed and drool oozed onto the pillow. Droplets of hot moisture absorbed into the cotton. Tired growling snoring blustered in his nostrils like a foghorn on a ghost ship of dreams.

Without saying anything Alex crept out from the bed, careful not to disturb Jeremy. She slipped out of bed and padded barefoot downstairs. In the cool kitchen, she breathed slowly, grasping a chair for balance. She filled a glass with tap water and drank it in one gulp.

Alex caught her reflection watching her from the dark window, a picturesque blend of the trees and darkness outside blended with the reflection of the dull suburban kitchen in a blender of loneliness and disconnection.

"It's getting harder to hide myself from him," she whispered to her reflection.

Her reflection remained silent, duh, watching from eyes slightly ajar behind the clumpy mass of face. She knew she didn't belong here, with him, with anyone, anywhere.

Itching to get out of the confining skin, she reached behind her ponytail, deep into her thick hair and fingered the tiny silver zipper with her first finger and thumb. Delicately, pulling through tangles of hair, she tugged the zipper down her skull, sliding the tiny mechanism down her neck. A draft of fresh air kissed her real head as she swept her hair to the side and the human skin unzipped and peeled away. Pulling away the human skin suit, Alex released herself into the kitchen, feeling like a smelly mermaid reaching for the surface and erupting into the sunlight and then remembering mermaids can't breathe oxygen anyway because they have gills. Then the mermaid would suffocate and die above the water and Alex would laugh at it because mermaids are silly skanks.

Alex stepped out of the crumpled pile of human flesh, hair, and pajamas, nudging the prison of conformity with her scaly clawed toe. Naked and free, she itched her puke green lizard body with one of her long six fingered paws. Her tail scraped the floor while she yanked at undesirable tufts of fur poking out of the hard shelled alligator skin.

Looking back at her reflection, Alex saw what she really was and smiled. Her giant glaring green nostrils flared with joy and desire. An evil glint glowed in her stony eyes and her fish like lips curled, revealing long sharp white teeth in a hungry grin. No one could ever know what she was, but safe beneath blankets of never-gonna-be-the-prom-queen-anywhere, her true form was kinda pretty.

She had been dating Jeremy for a few weeks and she was getting ready to run again. He was getting to close to discovering who she really was. When they were humping he almost felt her tail bulge under the skin suit, but he kept on going, like a human man does, you know, the grown up adult sexual intercourse way... like with the candles and the Barry White. Like fornication. Right? Yes? Soon he would know she was a freak and he would leave her, or he would turn her in to the FBI or he would have a nervous breakdown and kill himself. All of those things had happened before, but she hoped it was the latter so she could at least get dinner out of it.

Alex picked up her limp human skin suit and swung it around her neck like a pretentious hipster scarf. Hobbling in the darkness, she walked out of Jeremy's house and into the night. Past streetlights and garbage cans, she paced the dirty sidewalk in her natural form. She knew if someone saw her, even one of her loved ones, they would scream or shoot her, but she actually felt more safe without the suit. Dogs barked at her as she slinked through the night. It was times like this she almost thought about going back up to the mountains, finding a nice cave and holing herself up away from people, away from everyone, away from lines at the cafeteria, away from strangers touching her accidentally on the bus, away from coworkers talking, away from feelings.

The escape wasn't enough, though. Alex knew seclusion would never be enough. The skin suit dangled from her shoulders in a wave like a cape for the most pointless depressing super hero ever. She pressed it to her lips and anxiously gnawed on it as she walked home: soaking in the taste of Jeremy's sweat and semen and her own strange sweet scent. Rain drizzled on her lizard head as she sang an old folk song to herself in the night.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Stephanie: Oh, hey, Steve, what are you doing later?
Steve: Getting drinks with Adam.
Stephanie: Oh, Adam? Give him this for me.
(Stephanie hugs Steve tightly)
Steve: Give him that hug?
Stephanie: Yeah.
Steve: Okay. What are you doing later?
Stephanie: Yup. Seeing a movie with Delilah.
Steve: Cool, can you give her this for me?
(Steve kisses Stephanie on the mouth)
Stephanie: Um, yeah. Okay.
Steve: Thanks, buddy.
Stephanie: Are you going to see Bernadette tomorrow?
Steve: Sure. Probably.
Stephanie: Great, can you give her this from me?
(Stephanie bends Steve over and humps his butt. Then she lifts her arm up and wipes the armpit sweat off into her hand and smears it onto his face and cries into a cup and gives it to him to drink, after drinking it she slaps him.)
Steve: Right, okay, got it. Um, are you going to see Brad later?
Stephanie: Yes.
Steve: Can you give him this for me?
(Steve hands Stephanie a cd.)
Steve: He left it at my house last week.
Stephanie: I don't know if I'm comfortable handling that. Why don't you give it to him yourself?